The Expression Encoder developers have released a new plug-in for Encoder SP1.  The new Silverlight Streaming plug-in allows you to easily publish video, screencasts, etc. to the silverlight.live.net service.  The plug-in is still a pre-release product but it’s working well for me.

There are a few things to remember about publishing to Silverlight Streaming (affectionately known as SLS internally).

• If you spent a lot of time creating a video with another tool, you are not required to re-encode it with Expression Encoder 2 assuming the video is Silverlight compatible already.  Camtasia 5.x and above would be an example of a product that does that. Other video editing tools like Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 9 do as well.
• The first time you upload an “application” into SLS, it uploads the video and all of the supporting configuration files.  If you decide to change the player template, you can upload again, but this time you only need to upload the changed config files.  Much faster the second time.  Unless of course you change the video.
• After you push the video and config files to the silverlight.live.com servers, the SLS service creates a nice iFrame link you can use to embed in a webpage or blog post.
• As you can see in the screenshot at right, you can plug-in (pun intended) your account ID and the long cryptic account key then save them for future use.  Thank god.  I would never be able to remember that hexadecimal key.
• You can automatically publish after the encoding job is done.  If you are using the Source video profile on the front-end and not making any changes in your job, the encoding process is quick and then you are left watching the upload.  A phat fiber connection is nice to have for big HD video uploads.
• And last and most important, the new SLS plug-in is supporting the kewl Silverlight 2 templates that shipped with Expression Encoder 2 SP1.  That’s a hint.  Install SP1 to get them.  They rock.  More to come I’m sure.

Go get it @ http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=702f130c-f783-44bd-bc95-8141a8d3e90e&DisplayLang=en.  I expect to see some cool video examples from all of you.  Keep it clean. Grin.